The present invention relates to the field of the processing of mail and it relates more particularly to an automated system for producing booklets.
To the Applicant""s knowledge, at the present time there does not exist on the market an entirely autonomous system that can be used in an office environment which carries out, when required, complete production of booklets, from the make-up of the individual documents forming this booklet to their fastening, if necessary passing via the insertion of advertising inserts or of other inserts and the folding of the documents.
French Patent Application No. 2,739,846 discloses a booklet finishing machine which is intended to connect a bundle of documents together and which comprises, in an integrated fashion, a document stacking and aligning module, a fastening module for these documents, a folding module and a trimming module.
However, this machine, especially because of its autonomous operation, remains somewhat limited in its functionalities. Thus, it does not allow automatic insertion of rigid inserts or of transparencies and the thickness of the booklets which the machine produces can in no case exceed the maximum thickness imposed by its fastening module. The production of a large work is therefore not easily conceivable with this type of machine of the prior art.
The present invention therefore proposes an entirely automated system which can be used very simply in a conventional office environment and which is intended for the complete production of a booklet. One object of the invention is to produce booklets of all thicknesses the thinnest ones just like the thickest ones.
Another objective of the invention is also to produce a system whose high processing rates are not reduced by the insertion of inserts, even rigid ones.
These objectives are achieved by an automated system for producing booklets in a binding unit from digital documents that are to be printed by a digital imaging device placed at the input of this binding unit, the digital imaging device and the binding unit being controlled by a general-purpose computer linked both to the digital imaging device and to the binding unit, the system comprising:
means for recognizing, in the digital documents to be printed, first control signals (S1) corresponding to each start of page;
means for recognizing, in the digital documents to be printed, a second control signal (S2) corresponding to the last page of the booklet to be printed;
means for determining the number of pages in the booklet;
means for recognizing, in the digital documents to be printed, either a third control signal (S3) corresponding to a defined end of chapter or a fourth control signal (S4) corresponding to a defined end of paragraph, if this number of pages is greater than the predetermined maximum number of sheets that can be bound by the binding unit;
means for printing, in the digital imaging device, a first part of documents whose pages precede said defined end of chapter or end of paragraph;
means for binding, in the binding unit, into a first elementary booklet, the documents thus printed;
means for printing, in the digital imaging device, at least one second part of documents whose pages follow said defined end of chapter or end of paragraph; and
means for binding, in the binding unit, at least into a second elementary booklet, the documents thus printed.
Thus, with the structure of the invention, all the functions necessary for producing booklets of any thickness are carried out very simply by the combination of a conventional imaging device linked to a computer and a binding unit.
The digital imaging device comprises at least one document feed means, a printing module linked to the document feed means, in order to print the documents, and at least one document output linked to the printing module in order to deliver the documents thus printed to the binding unit, a control module furthermore being provided for controlling the printing and for synchronizing the transfer of the documents according to the orders received from the general-purpose computer.
The binding unit comprises an accumulating module linked to a document input intended to interact with the document output of said digital imaging device, a fastening module for fastening the various documents forming an elementary booklet, and an assembling module for joining together the various elementary booklets forming the booklet to be bound, a control module furthermore being provided for controlling and synchronizing these various modules according to orders received from the general-purpose computer. Preferably, this binding unit furthermore includes a folding module linked to the fastening module in order to fold the documents and a trimming module linked at the output of this folding module in order to finish the elementary booklet before it is ejected into the assembling module. They may also include an additional feed module for feeding flyleaves and/or inserts.
According to a preferred embodiment, the generalpurpose computer, the digital imaging device and the binding unit are linked together via a local communication network. The digital imaging device and the binding unit may form a common unit.
The invention also relates to the corresponding process for the production of booklets, in which firstly the number of pages in the booklet to be bound is determined on the basis of the recognition of first control signals extracted from the associated digital document, then, if this number is greater than the predetermined maximum number of sheets that can be bound together, the number of elementary booklets which it is then appropriate to create in order to form the booklet to be bound, on the one hand, and the number of pages in each of these elementary booklets, on the other hand, are determined and, finally, each of the elementary booklets thus determined is printed and then bound, separately and successively. Preferably, the various elementary booklets may furthermore be joined together to form said booklet to be bound.
The number of pages in each of the elementary booklets is determined on the basis of the recognition of second control signals extracted from the digital document.
Advantageously, the first control signals correspond to start-of-page and end-of-file characters from the digital document and the second control signals correspond to end-of-chapter and end-of-paragraph characters from the digital document.
Advantageously, each elementary booklet, other than the first elementary booklet, is provided with a complementary flyleaf printed in the digital imaging device or inserted directly into the binding unit.
According to a first alternative embodiment, the digital documents to be printed come from the digitization of original documents carried out directly in an optical read module of the digital imaging device.
According to a second alternative embodiment, the digital documents to be printed are created directly by entry via the keyboard of the general-purpose computer.